A Waste of Tickets
by HecateA
Summary: Teddy and Victoire have plenty of funfair tickets to spare, and he feels kind of bad that they laughed at the witch with the magic potion... Written for Romance Awareness Day 7: Casting a spell (or using a potion) to reveal your soulmate


**Author's Note: **Enjoy! Written for the 31 Days of Soulmate!AU Day 8: Casting a spell (or using a potion) to reveal your soulmate

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Romance fic featuring two characters under 16.

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Hogwarts; Harmony of Souls Eternal

**Bonus challenge(s): **Hola, Jambo, Bonjour; Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Seeds; Times to Come; Old Shoes; Brush; Neurodivergent; Fall Leaves; Trope It Up A (Best Friends to Partners); Themes and Things A (Love); Themes and Things B (Innocence); Themes & Things C (Cauldron); True Colours; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Representation(s): **Soulmate!AU

**Bonus challenge(s): **NA

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Obscure

**Word count: **1726

* * *

**A Waste of Tickets **

The entire student body had been buzzing about this particular trip to Hogsmeade for weeks and so far, the Autumn Equinox Fair wasn't disappointing. Hogsmeade's cobblestone roads were cluttered by booths and tables and food vendors. Buskers in the street were walking on stilts, dancing around in flurries of ribbons, playing dozens of songs at once, juggling balls that changed colour midair…

"You should join a circus too," Victoire whispered to Teddy, nudging her head towards one of the buskers who was an Animagus, turning himself into a dog to do tricks before taking up his human form again. "They would _love _your magic trick."

"Who would keep you company if I did a stupid thing like that?" Teddy asked—to which she had no answer.

They were eating caramel apples, which Victoire had been excited to do all week, and lazily roaming the village. Honeydukes had set up a booth outside where they were selling their famous hot chocolate and presumably making a killing. There were funfair games where you could throw balls to knock down pins, cast a spell towards a target and get a bell to ring if you were strong enough, throw tiny stuffed balls through moving Quidditch hoops, use an enchanted fishing pole to scoop plastic Grindylows out of a pool… There were a thousand lights and sounds to look at or pay attention to, and Teddy was aware that if he zoned out for a while his hair would start flickering in all these shades as well.

Victoire must have sensed that the size and buzz of the crowd were getting to him, because she steered them away towards a quieter part of the village that was stocked mostly by colourful tents—each fronted by big poster boards identifying them and promoters trying to draw in the thin crowd.

"Step on up, step on up!"

"The opportunity of a lifetime—"

"Nothing here is more worthy of your Galleons!"

"For one day, and one day only…"

The callers were drawing Teddy's attention everywhere.

A pair of giggling Ravenclaws stumbled out of a magenta tent close to them, gushing. Victoire made the mistake of looking remotely interested, and a small witch wearing a dress with flowing sleeves and her long hair in a twist atop her head emerged. She smelled overwhelmingly of perfume and the gaudy bracelets clinking and clanking at her wrists caused a racket.

"Hello, beautiful young lady!" the woman boomed. "You have come just in time to see the Mysterious Potion?"

"The Mysterious Potion?" Victoire whispered to Teddy. "Did she lose the recipe?"

Teddy snickered. He had an inkling that that may be rude, but he couldn't help himself. Victoire had that effect sometimes. The witch overheard.

"Bold of you to assume that there was a recipe to begin with, young lady! This potion has been passed down through generations of my family, from mother to daughter since time immemorial with the firm instructions to make sure that not a single drop is spilled!" the witch said, puffing herself up with dramatis and gravitas.

"That sounds like a big responsibility," Victoire said shyly, in a way that made it clear that she was trying to excuse them from the conversation.

"Enormous!" the witch confirmed. "But the reward is more than worthwhile!"

She gave them a moment to ask further questions before filling in the gaps herself. She made a wide gesture that sent the bracelets around her wrist into a cacophony.

"The legend of the Mysterious Potion says that whoever looks into the potion will see the face of their soulmate," the witch said.

Teddy looked to Victoire who looked back at him, looking doubtful.

"So who's your soulmate, ma'am?" Teddy asked.

"Results are confidential," the witch said quickly.

"So how do you know what your success rate is?" Victoire asked.

"Hundreds of satisfied clients have written back to me, the Keeper of the Mysterious Potion, to assure me that the potion lead them to their destiny!" she said.

"And how do you know that it's their soulmate that they're with and not just someone they'll break up with a couple of months after the letter is sent?" Teddy asked.

"Because they saw it in the potion!" the witch said.

"But I thought you said results were confidential," Victoire said.

Teddy snickered again, but this time he felt bad. This witch was a little bit eccentric, but she hadn't been mean to them or anything. And now she looked quite distressed by their line of questioning and the things they were asking, but really they weren't trying to be rude or anything…

"Okay," Teddy said. "Okay, we'll try it."

Victoire arched an eyebrow and looked at him questioningly as if to say '_oh we are?'_ But before she could voice her opposition out loud, Teddy reached into his pocket.

"I can cover both of us," he said quickly. "Do you take the fair's tickets?"

"Only Galleons, here!" the witch said.

"No, I can only give you tickets," Teddy said.

"I will make an exception!" the witch said.

Teddy handed over the tickets and she pulled her tent's flap open with an overly dramatic gesture. He saw Victoire chew her lip in an effort not to laugh, and Teddy wondered if his attempt at politeness was actually going to make everything quite a bit worse… well, too late now.

They stepped into the tent which smelled like pot-pourri, but more awful (which was saying something). The tent was dimly lit and rather barren, except for a giant cauldron in the middle of the space surrounded by white stools.

"Approach the potion, children," the witch said, retrieving an enormous spoon to stir from the corner of the tent and returning to the cauldron. "Go on, then!"

They took a seat on either side of the cauldron, exchanging glances above the potion. Victoire's half-smile nearly broke Teddy's resolve to take this seriously and solemnly, as the witch stirred the potion once, twice…

"Now, I will repeat the magic chant that activate the potion!" the witch said. "Make sure to look into the potion the whole time, or else its magic will not take hold of you!"

"Does that mean we'll get our tickets back?" Victoire asked.

Teddy chomped down on his lip to keep it together.

"When I finish..!" the witch said, ignoring Victoire. "You will see the face of your soulmate staring up at you! Be prepared for your life to change! Be prepared to memorize their face in your heart forever!"

Teddy looked into the fortune, focusing. For a second, he wondered what would happen if this ended up working better than they were expecting—if it worked _at all. _He was 14, which felt pretty young to know who your soulmate was. He didn't even know what he was having tonight, if he and Victoire didn't stuff themselves with popcorn all day and fill up. His parents had been much older when they'd met—then again, Grandma and his grandfather had gone to school together, and so had Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, so maybe it wasn't that bad…

"_Magic Potion, thou who knoweth love! _

_Magic Potion, brewed by the goddess of the dove! _

_I call to thee to show to this pair, _

_The face of the person with whom they'll have affair!" _

He saw Victoire's reflection in the potion's milky white surface, biting her lip to keep from laughing. Her eyes were lit up with laughter, and her hair fell down to her shoulders, covering her ears.

And that was all he saw, other than his own curious face too. They gave it a second before looking up to make eye contact with each other, and then turned back to the witch who looked quite smug and proud of herself.

"I don't think that worked," Teddy said apologetically.

"Impossible!" the witch promised. "This potion has been in my family for generations, since time immemorial…"

"We didn't see anything," Victoire chimed in.

"Impossible!" the witch said again.

"Well, we saw our own reflections," Teddy said. "And each others. But that's…"

"Then there it is!" the witch said decisively. "You have seen what you came to see!"

"The same thing we could have seen by looking in a puddle on the ground?" Victoire asked, frowning.

"It it the Mysterious Potion which choses what you ought to see in its surface, and it is not for us to question it!" the witch boomed.

"You really should have mentioned that before my friend gave you his tickets," Victoire said. "We would have negotiated with the cauldron directly."

At this point, Teddy finally lost his self-control and burst out laughing. As was often the case, his laugh was contagious and Victoire started laughing too, which only made Teddy laugh more, which… oh, they may be here a while.

The witch crossed her arms and looked decisively unimpressed with them.

"You will see!" the witch said. "One day you will see that you should have taken the Mysterious Potion seriously and treasured the honour to look into its wise and boundless surface! This ancient, priceless, undestroyable..."

"If it's undestroyable, why does it need guardians?" Victoire asked, which sent them into another round of laughter.

They were kicked out of the tent quite unceremoniously after that one, and their laughter wore itself out.

"At least that was fun," Victoire said.

"Yeah," Teddy smiled back. "Not a total waste of tickets."

* * *

"Victo," Teddy whispered in her direction. She was sleeping with her back to him, blonde hair trailing on the pillows. "Victo, are you up?"

"Why are you asking?" Victoire grumbled back.

"I just realised something really important," Teddy said.

"Is it that you shouldn't wake up your wife in the middle of the night the day before her twelve-hour shift if you want this marriage to last?" Victoire asked.

"No, I knew that already," Teddy said. "I just realised that we have to send a letter."

"At 2:23 a.m., which is prime letter-writing time," Victoire grumbled.

"It's pretty high-stakes," Teddy explained. "I just realised that Lily told me that the fair will be in Hogsmeade tomorrow and we kind of have to send a thank you card… also an apology letter…"

Victoire flopped around to turn to his direction. She looked confused for a second, and then clarity seemed to dawn on her.

"Oh gosh," she gasped.


End file.
